


In These Hills

by Tipsy_Kitty



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempted Rape, Child Abuse, Community: j2_everafter, Drug Dealing, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Non-Sexual Slavery, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 15:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy_Kitty/pseuds/Tipsy_Kitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared was abandoned to the mercy of the Cummings family when he was only 12, and spent the next few years toiling as their slave. Can his guardian dragon Jensen finally help him escape and find a real home? A J2 re-telling of <i>Pete's Dragon</i> for j2-everafter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In These Hills

Jared had been locked in the root cellar for 32 hours and 18 minutes.

Nineteen minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Last night he’d waited till Rob and Sheri were lolling on the couch, high as kites, and their sons were out drinking at the dive in Dogtown they favored, before he set off down the dark country lane. He ran as fast as he could, not even bothering to grab clothes or steal some of the food they’d locked up. Unfortunately, he’d only made it a couple of miles before the twins came cruising down the gravel road again in their battered Chevy Silverado.

Jared sprinted off into the dark but he was weak from hunger and it didn’t take long before they were hauling him kicking and screaming from the swamp. Willie held him down in the back of the truck, grinding his face into the metal grooves of the bed, while Billie sped on towards home, a dilapidated farmhouse twenty miles from the nearest town.

He’d been in the cellar ever since.

This was bordering on the longest they’d locked him up for running. He was thirsty and his bones hurt from lying on the hard-packed dirt floor. Water kept seeping into the walls from the sodden September rains and it wouldn’t be long before he’d be thirsty enough to try to lap up the puddles of mud. The cellar was dank and Jared was cold, so cold, and only the thinnest sliver of moonlight shone through. Jared had the constant creeping sensation of spiders crawling over his flesh.

He had spent a pointless hour hammering on the worn wooden doors, but they did not allow him passage and it wasn’t long before his fists were full of splinters.

By hour 20 he’d begun a serious battle for control with his bladder, which he’d lost around hour 24. He hated conceding defeat and having to piss in the dark corner, since the empty cellar was only 8 square feet, but it was unavoidable.

Jared was trying not to give in to the tide of hopelessness but it was hard, so goddamn hard. He’d been the Cumming’s veritable slave for years, working the garden and cleaning the house and helping with their cooks, which smelled terrible and made his nose bleed. Fixing their meals while getting very little to eat himself. Because, yeah, they were the cheapest fuckers on the planet, except for Rob’s overpriced, oversized Suburban and the money they wasted on the drugs they couldn’t manufacture.

He might have stood all of this, waiting for his mama to come pick him up again, clean and sober and ready to be the woman he remembered from when he was little, but they’d recently found another use for him. The owner of Fuller’s, a run-down convenience store out on route 7, had taken a liking to Jared, and Rob and Sheri had learned that their food and beer money would go a lot further if Jared went to his knees for the old man. Better still, Mr. Fuller had promised to find ways of getting the Cummings the increasingly hard-to-find ephedrine they needed to stay in business. If Jared would be accommodating.

“I don’t know what he sees in _your_ skinny ass,” Rob had said, “but you might finally start pulling your own weight around here.” Billie and Willie thought that was about the funniest thing ever. Sheri seemed affronted that nobody wanted what she had to offer in the way of sexual favors.

Jared had refused, and then he had started running.

But they always managed to find him. For hillbilly meth heads who spent half their lives stoned, they were able to track him easily enough. Hunger and thirst usually overwhelmed him before he got too far away, and his panicked sprints left broken branches and damaged corn stalks in his wake. ( _Steady this time, just go slow,_ he would tell himself, and then once he was outside it was just _Run! Run! Run!_ until he couldn’t anymore.)

He jumped when the door above him was wrenched open. He expected to see one of the Cummings but instead a strange man in a worn leather jacket appeared, extending a hand to Jared.

“Hurry up,” said the stranger. “They’ll wake soon.”

Jared was puzzled and more than a little suspicious. But any way out of the cellar was better than dying a slow death of dehydration and hunger, so he took the offered hand and let himself be pulled up into the cool night air.

The stranger handed Jared a bottle of water. Jared drank half of it, turned around and threw up, and then drank the rest more slowly.

Only then did he realize it could have been drugged.

“Who are you?” he asked, confusion and fatigue making it hard to concentrate.

“We need to move if you want to be away from here by morning,” the man said. Jared followed him, not really sure what else to do.

“Mr. Fuller didn’t send you, did he?” Jared asked.

“Ick, no,” the man said as he started down a row of tall corn. “I’m Jensen. I’m your guardian dragon.”

“Oh.” Jared blinked and wondered if maybe he’d hit his head when he was shoved into the cellar. “So how’d you know I was stuck in there?”

“I’m your guardian dragon,” Jensen said more slowly, as though Jared might not be very bright.

Jared was too tired and worn out to do anything but put one foot in front of the other and move as far away from the old farmhouse as fast as he could. He took a deep breath, the air smelling of sweet corn and the nearby lake, so glad to be out of the musty cellar he didn’t care if he had been rescued by a crazy guy claiming to be a dragon.

If the crazy guy was even real.

It seemed more likely that Jared was having some kind of hunger hallucination. He’d barely eaten a thing in the days before he’d been thrown down the cellar, not after Rob told the others Jared didn’t get to eat until he made a ‘grocery run.’

Jensen handed him a chocolate bar, which he nibbled at slowly so he wouldn’t be sick again. They trudged along under a cold sliver of moon, through rows of corn, back down into the marshes, gradually zigzagging their way towards the nearby bay. Maybe he could find shelter there, or a place to hide. But his progress was slow, way too slow, and it was probably just a matter of time before Willie or Billie caught up to him.

The early morning air was cool and Jared was chilled to the bone; his tatty t-shirt barely covered his prominent ribs and the hand-me-down jeans he wore were four sizes too big and four inches too short. His feet were bare and ached with each step, still torn up from his run down the gravel road the night before. When they reached the edge of the cornfield and headed into a copse of trees, he was finally overwhelmed by thirst and hunger and fatigue, and he collapsed onto the driest patch of ground he could find.

He was only slightly aware of the warm leather coat being wrapped around him and of gentle hands carrying him to higher, dryer ground.  


_“Mama?” Jared asked, yawning and sitting up in the back of their old Dodge. “We going home?”_

_His mama opened the door to the back seat and pulled him to his feet. She started to pick him up but he said “I’m almost 13!” so she took his hand and pulled him towards the farmhouse as he stumbled behind, wiping his tired eyes._

_He didn’t like coming here, didn’t like waiting in the car for hours while his mama smoked their crappy drugs and turned into some kind of zombie version of the woman he loved. (In his head he’d taken to calling them the Zombies instead of the Cummings.) He especially didn’t like it when the twins were around. They were bullies, six years older and mean as snakes, and Jared tried to steer clear of them as much as he could._

_“I’m a little short right now, Jared,” his mama said nervously as they climbed the broken steps to the front porch. “I need you to stay here and be a good boy, all right? Just do what the Cummings’ tell you till I get back.”_

_“What? No mama, don’t leave me here with—”_

_The door swung open and he was pushed inside the house._

_That had been more than four years ago._  
  
When Jared awoke several hours later, Jensen was sitting under a tree with Jared’s feet on his lap, cleaning the cuts and scrapes with a stinging solution.

“Ew,” Jared said trying to pull his feet away.

“Relax. I don’t care about your smelly feet.”

“My feet don’t smell!” Jared said, but he lay back down. Whatever Jensen was doing felt kind of good. After the sting came a cool salve that numbed the pain. Then Jensen wrapped the worst cuts in bandages and best of all, he produced a pair of thick, soft socks and some hiking boots from behind his back.

“Dude, you’re the best!” Jared said, throwing his arms around Jensen in a fierce hug.

Jensen turned pink from his neck to his hairline, and then handed Jared a tomato, ‘borrowed’ from a nearby garden.

“We should get a move on,” Jensen said.

“Wait, hang on,” Jared said, biting into the fruit. “Who are you, really?”

Jensen sighed. “Jensen. Guardian. Dragon. Why doesn’t anyone ever believe me? Is it my face? Do I look like a liar?”

“No, but you also don’t look like a dragon. Also? There’s no such thing as dragons.”

“Of course there’s dragons, _I’m_ a dragon.”

“You don’t have scales. Or fangs. Or claws. Or a tail.” Jared ticked each item off on his fingers.

“Of course not, not in this form.” Jensen waved his hand dismissively. “Those things tend to draw unwanted attention.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Of course. Don’t you know how valuable a dead dragon is? What are they teaching you kids in school these days?”

Jared hadn’t actually been to school since he was 12, but he didn’t think he would have learned about the worth of dragon parts even if he’d been allowed to get on Bus 26 each morning like the other kids in the area.

“Well, no offense, but if you’re my guardian you kinda suck at it.”

Jensen flashed him a look both apologetic and hurt. “There aren’t enough guardian dragons to go around, you know,” he sniffed. “We have to triage these things. Anyway, I got to you in time.”

 _In time?_ Jared wondered, and decided he was probably better off not knowing.

“Don’t dragons have wings? You don’t have wings.”

“Actually, I do have wings,” Jensen said. “That’s why the leather jacket is so handy.”

Jared eyed him. “They must be pretty small wings.”

Jensen pouted and was quiet for a while. Jared climbed to his feet and they started walking together in silence, Jared licking tomato juice from his fingers and marveling at how great his feet felt. Almost like they’d never been cut up.  
  
Two nights later Jeff was just about to close up The Lighthouse, his last actual customer having stopped in for a burger and a beer more than an hour before, when McNally said, “Here comes trouble.”

Jeff looked over his shoulder in time to see Sheri Cummings push through the door. Her eyes glittered with crystal and her lips curled up in a red smile that she probably thought looked coy, but actually made her look unhinged. She was wearing black cowboy boots, short denim cutoffs, and a tiny black sweater that exposed at least four inches too much of her stomach.

“Hiya, sex-y-man,” she said, looking Jeff up and down and swaying her hips as she walked up to the cash register. In her hey-day she had been a stripper, and despite the years of drugs and alcohol, she still looked pretty good. If you could ignore the bat-shit crazy, which Jeff could not.

He was annoyed at the interruption but tried not to show it on his face. That whole family creeped him out. They rode into Blue Harbor every few months on a wave of trouble, creating havoc wherever they went.

“We’re just about to close miss, what can I do for you?” he asked. He noticed that McNally had slid off his stool to hide in the restroom. _Fucker_ , Jeff thought without much rancor. He would have done the same if he could have.

“Don’t need anything, sex-y, just wondering if you’ve seen my boy around.” She sounded as stoned as she looked.

“Willie? Or Billie?”

“Not them, it’s my … adopted son. Real tall and skinny? Answers to Jared?”

“You adopted another child?” Jeff could hardly keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“Well, it’s a foster-like situation, see?” she said, snapping her gum and flapping a hand in the air vaguely. “And now he’s missing and we’re all just worried to pieces about him.”

“Did you check with the cops?” Jeff asked.

“No need to bring them into this, it’s just a, just a little domestic thing, you know.”

“I’ll keep my eyes peeled. What’d you say he looks like?”

She rolled her eyes. “Just look for a beanpole that seems to be walking on its own. That’s Jared.”

“Yes, I can really sense the affection you have for the kid,” Jeff said.

“He’s like a son to us,” Sheri said, waving over her shoulder as she tottered back out into the night.

“Jeez,” he muttered as he crossed the restaurant and locked the front door. “You can come out Kevin, you big chicken,” he called, and McNally poked his head around the restroom door.

“It’s your place. You have to deal with the crazies. I’m just the guy who wants one more beer.”

“Your girl’s gonna tan my hide.”

“That’s what you get for dating my daughter. Which I’m gonna have to punch you out for, one of these days.

“You say that every day. You like my chowder too much.”

“Anyways, no man should be expected to give up bread _and_ beer in the same week. It’s inhumane!”

“You’ll thank us when you still have both your feet.”

“I’m only _pre_ diabetic!” McNally protested.

“We’re trying to keep it that way,” Jeff said, but he relented and poured another beer.

“How are those crazies still walking free, anyway?” Jeff asked as he set about zeroing out the cash drawer. “Everyone in 5 counties knows they deal.”

“From what I hear, every time Sheriff Whitfield plans a raid, they get tipped off. House is clean as a whistle, no trace of anything illegal.”

Jeff started to respond, when there was a rap at the closed door. They both looked up to see Kevin’s daughter Lindsey scowling at them.

“Uh-oh,” Jeff said as he opened the door.

“You said you’d try, daddy, and look at you. You didn’t last a day. I bet you had a cheeseburger too!”

“Ah, sweetie, I didn’t mean to.”

“What, the cheeseburger fell into your open mouth?”

“’Twas the strangest thing!”

“And you!” She rounded on Jeff. “You promised me you’d look out for him.”

“Aw, babe, he’s very persuasive when he wants to be.”

“Don’t you ‘babe’ me. Not tonight,” she huffed, pulling her father out the door. To his credit McNally was only slightly wobbly tonight, as compared to many other nights when he helped Jeff ‘close down’ the Lighthouse. Jeff wondered just how much sucking up he was going to have to do to get Lindsey to forgive him. Flowers? Candy? Surely not jewelry. She was a practical gal, after all.

  
Rob and the boys were already drinking whiskey at the dingy tavern on the outskirts of town when Sheri stumbled in. She was coming down and a drink seemed like a very good idea.

“No luck?” her husband asked. She shook her head.

“Goddammit it,” Rob said. “I talked to Fuller earlier tonight, he’s more than willing to take the brat off our hands.”

Sheri giggled. “I’m sure. How much’d he offer?”

“Couple a thousand.”

The twins high-fived each other.

Both their parents turned dark looks to them. “We don’t get no money if we don’t have the kid,” Rob said gruffly, scratching at his goatee. “Maybe youse should get your asses back out there and keep looking.”

“We don’t even know that he came this way.”

“Yeah we do. Your grandpa Sid said he spotted the kid down by the lakefront last night, only he didn’t know we was missing him.”

“Maybe that lazy perv Fuller should look for him,” Willie said sullenly.

Sheri smacked him upside the head. “Finish your drinks and get back out there,” she snapped.

“Aw, Ma!” Billie said.

“Sorry boys,” Sheri snapped. “Why don’t you stay here and finish your drinks and have yourselves a nice little party. And then tomorrow, you can decide which one’s gonna sell your ass for a thousand bucks.”

The twins shared a shifty look and pushed to their feet.

“Fuckin’ whiskey’s watered anyway,” Willie muttered as they headed for the door.

“And watch your language!” Sheri hollered after them.  
  
They made their slow way along the bay and ended up looking down on a pretty little town along the water.

“Hey, I’ve been here!” Jared said.

Jared’s father had taken him to Blue Harbor once when he was 8. Dad had been really good that day, sober and all-there, and they had eaten fried clams and ice cream and then rented a boat and took it out on the bay. Jared’s dad didn’t usually have much time for him, even when he did have his shit together, what with having three ex-wives and at least four other kids Jared knew of. He had spent many lonely nights replaying that visit to Blue Harbor in his head over and over.

When he realized after the first week he’d been left behind that the Zombies just wanted him to do all their work for them, with never enough food or sleep, he’d tried to call his dad but the number was out of service. Then Rob had beat Jared across the room for using his cell and thrown him down in the root cellar, and Jared didn’t touch anyone’s phone after that.

They approached the town cautiously, on the lookout for any sign of the Zombies or Fuller or anyone else who looked up to no good. As they walked, Jensen talked about the life of a guardian dragon (as much as he could, sometimes claiming dragon/guardian confidentiality).

“So you’re going to a lot of trouble to make me think you’re a dragon,” Jared said at one point as they made their way towards a restaurant at the end of the block that Jensen had deemed ‘safe.’ “Unless you’re a hallucination and I’m starving to death in the cellar?”

Jensen reached over and flicked the tip of Jared’s nose with his fingers.

“Ow!”

“Definitely not a hallucination.”

“Definitely not a dragon either.”

“It’s a lot of effort transforming into a dragon. I don’t like to do it very often.”

“So you’re a lazy dragon.”

“I’m just not a show-off like the others. You should see them at the conventions. ‘My scales shine brighter,’ ‘my fire burns hotter’ blah blah blah.”

“At the conventions.”

“Yep.”

“You have dragon conventions.”

“Every January, location TBD,” Jensen said. “It’s usually someplace tropical,” he whispered. “But don’t tell.”

“Who would I… oh, nevermind.”

They walked in silence a few more minutes before Jared asked “Can I see them?”

Jensen looked around the empty park, making sure the coast was clear, before he pulled off his jacket and spread his strong, leathery wings.

Jared blinked. They were the same dusky black as Jensen’s jacket and seemed small at first, easily hidden by Jensen’s coat, but then Jensen stretched them out out out and they just kept expanding.

Jared was struck dumb as he watched the wings expand and contract. He wondered for a minute what it might feel like to be held by them.

“So you finally believe I’m a dragon?”

Jared swallowed hard. “I believe.”  
  
Jeff unlocked the doors at 11 a.m., still sleepy from the night before. As expected, Lindsey was the first customer of the day.

“Hey babe, what can I get for you?”

“How about your nuts on a platter? And a coffee to go.”

“I thought you liked my nuts.”

She sighed. “It’s for his own good, dammit. I just want him to be around for a while.”

“He started exercising.”

“Yes, but he eats garbage all day.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry. Just, I’m worried about him,” Lindsey said.

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Stop selling him beer?”

“He’s my best customer.”

“Make your clam chowder less tasty?”

“You really don’t get how restaurants work, do you?”

She smiled at him. “Just help me watch out for him?”

“I’ll do what I can. But if his diet bankrupts me I’m moving in with you guys.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” she asked, leaning in for a kiss.

After she left Jeff realized that another customer had snuck in while they were talking. A teenaged boy, looking tired and dirty and underfed, was sitting in the corner where he could look out the windows and keep an eye on the front door.

Hmm.

He approached the booth with a pot of fresh coffee.

“Umm, I don’t have enough for coffee,” the kid said as he pulled some change out of his pocket. “I was just hoping for water and a tiny cup of soup? And-maybe-some-crackers?” he finished in a rush.

“Do you like coffee?” Jeff asked.

The kid nodded. “When I’m allow—yeah.”

“Then it’s on the house,” Jeff said as he poured.

The kid looked up at him then, suspicious. “I’m not trading you anything for this.”

Jeff was taken aback. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Everybody wants something.” The kid eyed him again and then looked at the empty seat across from him, raising an eyebrow. He seemed to relax a little and picked up the mug, taking a grateful sip.

“You want cream?” Jeff asked. The kid looked ready to say no but Jeff added, “No offense, but you look like you could use all the calories you can get.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Jeff went to fetch the cream and also fill up a bowl of his mama’s famous chowder. She had been raised in New England and saw no reason why the good people of Michigan should be deprived of a good chowder, even if the clams in Lake Superior were inedible.

He returned to table 35 and started to take the booth opposite the kid, who he assumed was Jared.

“Don’t sit there.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any—”

“Jensen’s sitting there.”

Jeff looked from the empty seat to Jared and back.

“Jensen?” he asked, feeling foolish.

“Jensen is a dragon. He’s invisible right now.”

“I see.” Jeff pulled up a chair from the next table over. “So, I don’t want to freak you out, but Sheri Cummings was in here last night looking for a runaway.”

The kid dropped his spoon with a clatter and looked towards the entrance, panicked.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Jeff said. “But I’m guessing you’re Jared?”

Jared worried his lip uncertainly. He seemed to again get confirmation from empty air, and he turned towards Jeff.

“Jensen says you’re trustworthy, but I’m not so sure.”

Jeff’s gaze again flicked from the empty seat back to Jared.

“Jensen’s right,” he said, figuring if he could get the kid fed and safe, they could work on his mental problems later. “I’m an okay guy and I’m not a real big fan of the Cummings’, so if you’re running away from them I’ll do what I can to help.”

Jared slumped against the booth, tension and fear flowing out of his body and making him look younger and somehow even more vulnerable.  
  
Jeff left Jared and ‘Jensen’ alone for a little while to tend to other customers stopping in for an early lunch. When he turned back the booth was empty, the soup and crackers gone and a forlorn pile of change mounded up in the middle of the table. A few minutes later McNally slid into one of the empty barstools for his first pick-me-up of the day.

“Kevin, you’re gonna get me in trouble with my girl again,” he said.

“Never mind that, I’ve earned this one,” McNally said. “I just saw a dragon down by the lakefront.”

“Oh Lord, not you, too.”

“Not me too what?”

“A dragon?”

“Yep.”

“You think you saw a dragon.”

“I swear I saw a dragon!”

Jeff sighed. It was shaping up to be a long day.  
  
Jared was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be crushing on his guardian dragon, but it was kind of hard not to. He was gorgeous and nice and looked amazing in leather and then, of course, he had that whole hero thing going for him.

And the wings. Hot damn.

Jared was hiding in a gazebo at the riverfront park, just a few hundred yards away from The Lighthouse. His stomach was more full than it had been in forever, and the sun was shining down through the trees. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this content. Jensen was ‘checking the perimeter’ or whatever and Jared was supposed to keep out of sight, but he climbed to his knees to watch Jensen walk up and down the small park a couple of times. He peered into the bay, sniffed the air, and generally acted like a crazy person. Jared smiled as he watched. Once or twice, when he thought nobody but Jared was looking, he would spread his wings and fly a few feet into the air, and those times Jared could almost make out the shape he would take transformed. Long and sinewy and powerful. He was pretty sure Jensen’s scales would shine brighter and his fire burn hotter, no matter what the other dragons said at their stupid conventions.

Jared was worried that he might be some kind of weirdo because he was contemplating dragon sex. Or at least dragon snuggles.

Finally, Jensen made his way back to the gazebo and they sat facing each other in the small space.

“So dead dragons are valuable, huh?” Jared asked, trying not to notice how close his knees were to Jensen’s.

“Oh, yeah. Haven’t you heard the story of the ‘Thrice Dead Dragon’?”

“Uh, no.”

“Sometimes it’s called ‘Every Little Piece’?

“Yeah, still no,” Jared said.

“It’s a, you know, a cautionary tale. Like ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”

“That one I know.”

“Yeah, like how Red was a wicked dragonslayer looking to make a basket of treats out of dragon bits? And then the littlest dragon nobody paid attention to vanquished and roasted her and then there was a big feast?”

Jared coughed. “That’s a slightly different version than I heard.”

“Yeah? How different?”

“It’s…nevermind.”

“Right, so, the ‘Thrice Dead Dragon’ is about these two quacks chopping up a dragon and talking about how much each part is worth, and what it’s good for. Like supposedly our livers cure a cold?”

“What happens to the quacks?”

“You know, littlest dragon, vanquished, feast… all our fairy tales pretty much end the same.”

“So what are you worth?”

“I don’t remember everything, but I was always freaked out because dragon fat can maybe heal burns. I used to have nightmares about someone coming to siphon the fat out of me while I was sleeping.”

“But you don’t have any fat.”

“Yeah, well, cautionary tale. No sense asking for trouble,” Jensen said, patting his flat stomach.

“So you think that guy Jeff’s okay?”

“Yep. He’s a good guy. You should go talk to him. I know for a fact that he needs help around the restaurant, maybe he’d give you a job.”

Jared was doubtful. “No one would hire me. I’m a drug dealer and I stopped going to school in eighth grade.”

Jensen picked up Jared’s hands and Jared felt a thrum travel up his arms and down to his belly.

“Okay, first, you’re not a drug dealer.”

“Yeah, but I—”

“Stop. None of that was your fault.”

“Okay, but—”

“Second, you need someone to protect you until those loons are arrested. Jeff can do that.”

Jared bit his lip and studied the painted wooden floor of the gazebo, tracing a rectangle of light with his finger.

“I thought you were gonna protect me,” he finally said in a small voice.

Jensen sighed and put an arm around Jared’s shoulder.

“Only for now. I can’t stay. I’m just supposed to get you safe and then—”

“Triage.”

“Yeah.”

Jared laid his cheek against Jensen’s shoulder and closed his eyes. “I’m gonna take a nap now, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll keep watch.”

Jared slid down to the ground and hugged his thin arms around his chest, already starting to feel the loss of the only good thing in his life.

As he was pulled down towards sleep he thought he felt a fluttery soft kiss on his forehead.  
  
Jeff was relieved when the door opened around 5 o’clock and Jared came in, looking around nervously. When he spotted Jeff he made his way towards the bar with shuffling steps, hands stuffed in the pockets of his ill-fitting jeans, looking like he expected to be kicked to the curb at any moment.

“Glad you came back!” Jeff said to him. “I was thinking—”

“Hey, it’s that kid!” McNally said, pointing. Jared shrank away from him.

“Kevin!” Jeff snapped. “Can it.”

“But it’s him, the boy with the dragon!”

“Oh, Lord,” Jeff said, but Jared actually relaxed a little.

“That’s Jensen,” Jared said. “He’s a good dragon.”

“Sure he is. Till they find you _spontaneously combusted_. You know that’s the work of dragons, right?”

“Uh…”

“Kevin, you shut up. Jared, you follow me.” Jeff signaled at one of the servers to take over behind the bar and steered Jared through the kitchen and into a seating area off to the side bisected by a tall, steep staircase.

“Look, Jared, I know you have no reason to trust me,” Jeff began.

Jared lowered his gaze. “Jensen...”

“What?”

“Jensen. He said I could trust you.”

Jeff wondered if he knew what he was doing, offering shelter to a teenaged boy who had probably been abused and was most likely schizophrenic. Then he looked into Jared’s sad eyes and knew he had to do what he could to protect the boy.

His own Sean would be about Jared’s age, he thought, feeling a pang in his heart that never really went away.

“I know those crazies are looking for you,” Jeff said. “I’d feel better if you stuck around the Lighthouse.”

Jared looked at him uncertainly. “I’m not going to f—”

“I don’t want that Jared,” Jeff said quickly. “I just want to help.”

Jared studied his face. “Jensen says you’re not a perv. He says you just miss your family.”

Jeff blinked in surprise. The death of his wife and son in a car crash several years earlier was common knowledge, but most people tiptoed around the subject in Jeff’s presence.

“I do miss my family. And I do want to help. And I’m _definitely_ not a perv.”

“That’s what Jensen says.” Jared still looked hesitant, but then seemed to come to some sort of decision.

“Well… I was thinking… maybe you could use a busboy?” Jared looked up at him shyly.

Relieved, Jeff held out his hand. “Welcome aboard.”  
  
“And then he sent me upstairs to shower—he said it nicely but I know I was pretty gross, and he loaned me these jeans which almost fit, you know, with a real belt instead of a piece of rope, and an actual sweater, and with the shoes you got me I haven’t had this many nice things in, like, ever! And did you know it used to be an actual, working lighthouse—it’s inactive now, but Jeff let me go up to the top and walk around and I could see almost to Minnesota!”

Jared was breathless with excitement, brimming with hopefulness he hadn’t dared let himself feel in years.

They were standing in a small grove of trees a few dozen yards from the gazebo ( _their_ gazebo, Jared thought, though he knew he shouldn’t.)

“And I get to help out around the restaurant, and actually get paid, and eat all the food I want, can you believe it?”

Jensen suddenly pulled him into a fierce hug and Jared held on tight.

“None of this ever would have happened without you,” Jared said, embarrassed by the quiver in his voice.

“I’m so happy for you Jared.” He felt another feathery soft kiss on his forehead. “You deserve only good things, and I’m sorry I didn’t find you when you were 13.”

“If you’d found me when I was 13, we couldn’t have done this,” Jared said, feeling more bold than he had in years, as he leaned in and placed a kiss on Jensen’s lips. Jensen’s eyes widened, startled, and then he began kissing Jared back, tender and slow.

Jared knew Jensen would have to move on, couldn’t even feel bitter about it because the words _in time, in time_ kept running through his head, and he wanted Jensen to help other kids _in time_ like he’d helped Jared. So he decided he’d take what he could get, even if it was just this one moment. Their lips hadn’t even parted, they were moving into each other so slowly, when Jared heard a terrible thunking sound and then Jensen bit almost all the way through Jared’s lower lip.

Jared reared back in shock and pain, and watched in horror as Jensen slid to the ground senseless, blood pouring from a wound in his head. Standing behind Jensen and holding a baseball bat was Willie.

“No,” Jared said, shaking his head. “No no no.” He took a step back and then Rob was behind him, pinning his wrists together with one strong hand and lifting him off the ground.

“No no no,” Jared said again, and then began shouting. “No No NO! Jensen! Jeff!” He whipped his head around like a spooked stallion, kicking frantically at the air. He got a hand free and yanked at Rob’s long, tangled hair but then Willie was picking up one leg and Billie the other and Rob grabbed him under his arms and they were hauling him towards the parking lot beyond the trees, back to their car, back to the farmhouse he hated so much.

“Shut ‘im up,” Sheri said, and a dirty cloth of some kind was shoved between his teeth.

He continued to kick and flail but he was really no match for the three big men, especially once they made it back to the SUV. He was thrown in the back and Rob jumped in after, sitting on his legs and pulling his arm behind his back so far Jared thought he felt a bone snap. His heart was pounding so hard and so fast he wasn’t sure his ribs could contain it.

Then Sheri leaned over the back and began running her fingers through his hair.

“We got tired of trying to train you,” she told Jared with a drunken giggle. “We’re gonna let Mr. Fuller do the rest.”

Jared almost thought he would pass out in fear, _no no no, in time, in time?_ and he shook his head frantically, trying to catch Sheri’s eye but then a forearm was pressed against his neck.

She patted his head with something that could almost pass for affection. “He’s paying two thousand dollars for your ass, you believe that?” She laughed again and pinched his cheek. “Your own mama only sold you for an 8-ball and a $200 IOU.”

“He’s, what’s that word?” Billie asked from the front seat. “Opposite of cars?”

“Appreciated,” Rob said, and then laughed. “He’s appreciated over time.”  
  
“Where’s Jared?” Jeff asked McNally, once the restaurant had calmed down after the dinner rush.

“He was wandering down by the water,” McNally said. “Him and his dragon friend.”

Jeff closed his eyes, trying not to lose patience. He reminded himself that McNally was the father of the woman he loved, _and_ Jeff’s best customer. He left by the restaurant’s back entrance, where there was a deck for outside dining in the summer, and scanned the park. There was not much moon and it looked like a couple of the lights along the path had burnt out.

Or been knocked out.

Feeling uneasy, he headed down to the water. “Jared?” he called.

Silence, and then the crickets started up again.

“Jared!” Silence. Crickets. And then the crickets, the loons, the frogs, every critter in a three mile radius went completely, utterly still.

Suddenly a pillar of flames shot up through the cluster of trees at the edge of the park, at least 30 feet high. Jeff took a step backwards and promptly fell on his ass in the sandy grass.

“Holy—” he breathed. The door behind him opened and he heard his customers and staff spill out into the night to see what was going on. Up and down the boardwalk, people from the stores that were still open came out to see where the fire was coming from, and stayed, mesmerized.

“What the hell is that?” he heard Lanette Ware ask.

“That would be a dragon,” Kevin said, sounding smug. “And you all thought I was just an old drunk.”

“You’re still an old drunk,” someone muttered, and then the flaming tower was extinguished. Jeff heard the sound of trees snapping and crashing to the ground, and an alien scream tore through the quiet evening.

Jeff watched, transfixed, as something huge and serpentine shot into the air, at least thirty feet long from nose to tail, black leathery wings spread wide.

“A dragon?” he whispered.

“A dragon,” Kevin agreed.

The magnificent beast shot through the sky, straight up a hundred feet, and then it did a somersault, coming out of it in a sinuous twist as it turned southeast and sailed off into the night.

The crowd was silent for at least a full minute.

“Should we call that in?” Lanette asked.

“Call who?” said Jeff’s cook. “Tell them what?”

More silence, and then “Drinks,” Jeff decided. “Come to the Lighthouse, drinks are free tonight.”

People pushed back into the restaurant, talking loud and shrill like people do in the wake of something they can’t explain, while Jeff studied the sky, the direction Jensen had gone. He pulled his head server aside and told her to keep the drinks flowing and ignore the cost.

“I need to be somewhere,” he told her by way of apology. The fact that he had no idea where _somewhere_ was, he did not go into.

He started his car and followed the path of the dragon as best he could.

  
Jared was finally, maybe inevitably, where he’d struggled never to be—kneeling in front of the odious Mr. Fuller of Fuller’s MAR ET, where the K had burned out years ago and nobody gave two shits.

If possible, it was worse than his worst imaginings, because he never would have thought every single Zombie would be standing around the saggy screened-in porch, laughing at his humiliation.

He kind of, for the first time, hated his mama. Just a little bit.

There were cruel jokes, and Jared’s hair being yanked back, and the sound of a lowering zipper, which Jared would never have imagined could sound so scary.

And then there was the sound of rusty nails screaming as they were pried from old wood, shingles snapping like popcorn and falling to the ground. Wind whipped through the suddenly roofless porch, and long flaps of screen fell over without support.

They all tilted their heads to the sky, but when Jared saw the dragon flapping its long, beautiful wings above the ruined porch, he alone sagged with relief.

“Jensen,” he said as he met the gaze of the majestic, amazing beast.

Jensen was breathtaking.

He landed more softly than Jared would have thought possible, positioning himself between Jared and his abusers. He hissed, and smoke blew out of his nostrils.

Jared was aware that he could hear the dragon, hear Jensen, in his head even though the beast wasn’t speaking.

_Do you want me to kill them?_

And Jared did, a vicious part of him wanted them dead, all of them, and he thought about it.

The moment stretched out.

Then Jared shook his head.

“Police,” he said finally.

Jared climbed to his feet, searching for a phone amidst the chaos of broken shingles and rusty nails. He cradled his broken wrist against his stomach.

“You can’t have him!” Sheri cried suddenly. “He’s ours!”

“Ma, shut up,” Willie said nervously. Sheri stubbornly folded her arms across her chest.

“He’s ours,” she repeated. “We paid for ‘im.”

“Actually, he’s _mine_ ,” Mr. Fuller snapped at her.

The dragon growled, and a warning jet of flame flew from his mouth.

Billie and Willie used the diversion to make a dive for the broken screen door, rolling over the grass and then scampering off into the cornfield Jared had hidden in so many times before.

The dragon roared, but Jared placed a hand on its quivering foreleg.

“It’s okay,” Jared said. “Let them go.”

Distracted by the fleeing twins, neither Jensen nor Jared noticed Rob pull a small pistol from his jeans.

There was a loud crack and Jared looked down in surprise as blood began seeping into his brand-new sweater in a widening bloom.

“Oh,” he said, sitting down hard. “Crap.”

He leaned against Jensen for support, letting his eyes slip shut. He heard the anguished roar of the dragon, felt the intense heat of Jensen’s rage, saw the red glow of flames behind his closed eyes, and then a strange sensation of moving swiftly through space.

And then nothing.  


**Blue Harbor Post**

**3 Killed in Blast that Levels Hillsboro Home**

September 9, 2013

By Lindsey McKeon McNally, staff writer

 

A late-evening explosion Friday in Hillsboro killed 3 people and injured two others in what Pottawatomi County authorities say was a meth-lab explosion.

Investigators found evidence of a methamphetamine production facility in an outbuilding 20 yards from the family house.

Homeowners Robert Cummings, 48, and Sheri Cummings, 44, were killed in the blast. A third man remains unidentified.

The Cummings’ two children, Willie B. Cummings, 23, and Billie W. Cummings, 23, sustained second degree burns.

“We found evidence of meth production as well as three exploded propane tanks,” said Sherriff Charles Whitfield.

Traces of anhydrous ammonia, which is used in the production of methamphetamines, were found on the

Cont. on p. A. 10.

 

** Blue Harbor Post Weekend Edition **

**Madness Shared by Two?**

October 18, 2013

By Lindsey McKeon McNally, staff writer

 

Twin brothers Willie and Billie Cummings, 23, experienced a devastating loss last month when their parents and a family friend were killed in a house explosion.

Still, psychologists struggle to explain why both men attribute the tragedy not to a meth-fueled house explosion, but rather a dragon.

“It was 40 feet tall,” Willie says, “with flames hot enough to burn your hair off.”

“Was not!” says Billie. “It was 60 feet tall at least, with a face like the devil himself.”

While the brothers might disagree on some of the details, they remain adamant that a giant creature was responsible for the death of their parents and an area business owner, as well as the leveling of their childhood home.

Local psychiatrist James Stuart says this kind of shared delusion isn’t as uncommon as one might think.

“Shared psychosis—folie à deux, as the French would say—is quite common among certain demographics, particularly siblings with an unusually tight bond who might have experienced some sort of trauma.”

Although the brothers claim the ‘dragon’ could be seen from up to 20 miles away, nobody in the nearby towns of Blue Harbor or Bay Ridge remembers seeing anything that could account for this strange ‘shared’ story.

“A dragon? Well, I think I’d remember something like that,” said local business owner Jeffrey D. Mor-

Cont. on p. D-28  


Jared was sitting on a bench in the lakefront park, skipping stones into the water with his good hand. A voice inside his head was calling the play-by-play on his extraordinary prowess.

_This rookie Padalecki’s becoming quite the name, known for his exceptional rock-chucking abilities. Few are able to skip a stone three times and hit the buoy out yonder as well as young Padalecki…_

The crowd in his head cheered.

His wrist was out of its cast and just twinged every now and again, if he tried to pick up too many plates at once. His left side still hurt a little, where the bullet had pierced his flesh and gone through to the other side, but not as much as it had a few weeks ago when he’d woken up alone and in pain at the Pottawatomi County hospital.

Jeff had come for him shortly after, face drawn and pale, and stayed by him all that night and through the next day, when an endless number of techs and nurses and cops had been in to see him. Jared steadfastly held that he did not know how he’d been shot, that he’d developed a very selective, very acute sense of amnesia about the event. Since there was no actual proof that he had ever lived with Rob and Sheri Cummings, there was little to connect the two incidents. Jeff petitioned for custody of Jared until he turned 18 in a few months, and with Jared’s support he was easily granted his claim.

It was a small town, after all, and Family Court Judge Lanette Ware had some sense of what might have gone on that night that would not be entered into public record. But she knew Jeff was a good man, and that Jared trusted him. With a hard warning that she’d ‘be keeping her eye on him,’ she granted Jeff’s petition.

She was as good as her word, popping in at strange hours for a look around The Lighthouse. Jared always seemed content when she showed up, ladling her a cup of chowder if Jeff was allowing him to work, chatting with her on his perch by the bar if Jeff decided he’d had enough for one day. More often than not, there would be a thick booklet open in front of him and a pencil worried between his teeth; he was steadily working his way through a GED study guide with Lindsey’s patient tutoring.

He was happier than he had any right to be, he knew, and yet he missed Jensen like a phantom limb. He missed their easy conversation as they zigzagged their way through Pottawatomi County towards the picturesque county seat of Blue Harbor; he missed Jensen talking to him about crazy-ass dragon conventions and the prestige of being a guardian dragon.

In his comfy bed above Jeff’s restaurant, and beneath the dark beacon that had once saved sailors from death, Jared would try to forget the feeling of strong arms pulling him close, of soft lips against his own. Jared knew he should be grateful for his new life away from the Zombies, and should stop being selfish. Jensen had others to help. Others to get to _in time_.

Maybe Jensen kissed so sweetly everyone that he guarded; how could Jared know?

It was a slow Monday afternoon, several weeks after the incident that Blue Harbor residents still spoke about in hushed whispers. Jared was minding the register while studying a fat booklet and trying to teach himself geometry when the front entrance opened with a jangle.

“Sit anywhere,” Jared said, barely glancing up from his studies.

He heard the stool in front of him scrape away from the bar. “What’s good?” asked a familiar voice.

“Chowder. Best in Michigan,” he said by rote. Then he realized whose voice he was hearing. He almost didn’t want to look up for fear that his imagination was playing tricks on him but he did, and there was Jensen, green eyes smiling, worn leather jacket fitting to him like a second skin.

“I…hi…” Jared said, feeling like a tongue-tied fool.

“Hi Jared. You look good.”

Jared looked at him then, saw the worry in his eyes, and the guilt.

“Thanks to you.”

Jensen shook his head. “I didn’t…I should have…look, you probably don’t want to see me, but I wondered if maybe we could talk when you get off work?”

Jared blinked. “Yeah, sure. Gen’s coming on at five.”

“Five. Good.” Jensen stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked uncertain for the first time since Jared had met him.

Two hours later Jared made his way down the block to the ice cream parlor. Jensen was sitting inside at the corner table, a mammoth banana split in front of him.

Jared laughed at the sight.

“I couldn’t eat that much in a year,” he said.

“Part of my plan to fatten you up.”

“Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel?”

Jensen looked confused and Jared remembered they had been taught very different fairy tales when they were young.

“The witch, she fattens them up so she can eat…” Jared bit his lip as his cheeks burned pink. “Nevermind.”

They started in on the ice cream, Jared trying to taste all the different sauces before he couldn’t eat anymore.

“I can’t decide which is better, raspberry or marshmallow.”

“You don’t have to decide. That’s the beauty of the All-Flavor Banana Split.”

“Man, I can’t remember the last time I had ice cream,” Jared said. “It’s better than I remembered.

They were quiet a few minutes, working away at the desert.

“Jared,” Jensen said, tone suddenly serious, and Jared placed his spoon down again, stomach clenching.

“I’m so, so sorry you got hurt. I was supposed to—”

But Jared was already shaking his head. “You got hurt too. It’s not your fault.”

“It is. I let my guard down.”

 _Because I kissed you_ , Jared thought, feeling miserable.

“Hey,” Jensen said, reaching over and lifting Jared’s chin.

“I’m sorry,” Jared said. “I screwed everything up, I _always_ screw everything up.”

And then Jensen was coming around to his side and squeezing in next to Jared. “You didn’t Jared, it’s not your fault. The only thing I don’t regret about that night is kissing you.”

Jared nodded slowly, wanting to believe.

“And I was hoping, maybe if you decide to forgive me, I could take you out on an actual date.”

“Really?” Jared started to smile before he remembered. “You can’t, you have to move on.”

Jensen looked wounded and Jared hurried to clarify. “The others, the others who need guardian dragons. They need you.”

“Ah.” Now it was Jensen’s turn to look away. “Actually… I’m not going to be doing that anymore.”

“What? Why? Not because of me, I won’t let you!”

Jensen smiled, soft and sad, and took Jared’s hand. “It’s not really your choice, or mine. The Grand Dragon decided I might be better suited at some other line of work.”

“But—”

Jensen shook his head. “It’s done. It turns out that when you let your charge get injured, and transform in front of 50 locals without turning invisible, _and_ kill three people in a way that makes national news …”

Jared looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry Jensen. It _is_ all my fault.”

“It’s not. And I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner but, I was in kind of a lot of trouble. It’s only just been straightened out.”

“I’m sor—”

Jensen held up his hands. “How about this. You accept my apology, and I accept your apology, and we move on from this point.”

Jared studied him, the glint in his beautiful eyes, the quirk of his mouth, and nodded. “Deal.”

They ate until Jared felt sure he would start throwing up sugar, and then they left the shop and made their slow way down to the gazebo, to their gazebo.

“So…” Jared said, knocking his shoulder against Jensen’s. “You guys have Grand Dragons?”

“Yes,” Jensen said peevishly.

“You should really change that name.”

“We had it first by like, 3,000 years!” Jensen exclaimed.

“Still,” Jared said, fighting to hold back a laugh.

“Stupid, racist, name stealing…” Jensen muttered. It was clearly a sensitive subject among dragons, one that Jared would be sure to tease him about later.

Later.

There would be a later, because Jensen was sticking around. He felt warm all over at the thought.

“So what are you going to do now,” Jared asked, leaning into Jensen and watching the lake darken with the coming twilight.

“I don’t know, I thought I might ask Jeff if he needs a bartender dragon.”

“Everybody should have a bartender dragon.”

“That’s what I thought!” Jensen raised himself up to his full height. “C’mon, we should get you back. I want to talk to Jeff.”

“About applying? You’ll be a cinch if you can make one of those flaming drinks by breathing on it.”

Jensen laughed. “Not sure that’s hygienic. But no, I wanted to ask him if he’s okay with us dating. You know, cause I’m a dragon and you’re not, and you’re only 17 and I’m older.”

Jared paused mid-step. “You’re not like, 400 years old or something, are you?” he asked. “Because that would be pretty creepy, even if you are prettier than old Mr. Ful—”

But Jensen laughed, cutting him off with a small kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I’m a dragon, not a vampire. I’m only 21.”

“Oh,” Jared said, relieved. “Good.”

They stood in the shadows outside of the rear entrance for a moment, holding hands. It was dark out, and an icy wind promised snow as it blew through the leafless trees, but Jared could see into the Lighthouse, where the warmth of his new home waited, and the delicious scents of chowder and roasted chicken and fried potatoes, and new friends like Jeff and Lindsey and Judge Ware and even cranky Mr. McNally, who sometimes yelled when Jared refused to give him buns for his cheeseburgers.

He was happier than he’d ever imagined he could be. He squeezed Jensen’s hand one more time, and then they stepped in from the cold.


End file.
